Middle East Press On US Election And Biden Re-joining Iran Deal: New Age Islam's Selection, 26 October 2020
By New Age Islam Edit
Bureau
26 October
2020
• Biden Re-joining The Iran Deal Is Easier Said
Than Done
By Hussain Abdul-Hussain
• What The US Election Means For Iranian
Americans
By Sina Toossi
• So, What Do Arabs Want From The Next US
President?
By Faisal J. Abbas
-----
Biden Re-joining The Iran Deal Is Easier Said
Than Done
By Hussain Abdul-Hussain
25 October
2020
At face
value, the upcoming US election presents a choice between two Iran strategies.
If President Donald Trump is reelected for a second term, he will maintain
“maximum pressure” on Iran. In contrast, his Democratic challenger Joe Biden
has hinted that he will suspend US sanctions and rejoin the nuclear deal. This,
however, is only election talk. Reality will prove different.
If Trump
wins reelection, Iran will be forced to return to the negotiating table, and
resume from where it broke off in 2017. As Iran’s economy continues its
bottomless free fall, Tehran cannot afford four more years of Trump’s pressure,
and will certainly negotiate. Before the US reinstated its sanctions, it gave
the European powers a chance to convince Tehran to make all sunset clauses in
the nuclear deal permanent. The deal was designed with various restrictions on
Iranian nuclear activity that expire in five, eight, 10, and 25 years from its
date of adoption.
When all
the clauses of the nuclear deal with Iran expire in 2040, Iran will have the
freedom to enrich unlimited amounts of uranium to unspecified levels. The
Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) protocol will therefore become the only
guarantee that Iran will not make a nuclear bomb.
After talks
with the Europeans, Iran, underestimated the power of US sanctions, and
believed that if Europe, Russia and China stayed in the deal, Tehran would be
able to circumvent US pressure. But Tehran was wrong. America’s sanctions were
more powerful than even Washington expected, and so Iran moved to Plan B: Wait
out Trump. Should Trump be reelected, Iran would most probably agree to making
sunset clauses permanent, that is if Washington agrees to put its 2017 offer
back on the table.
Iran’s Plan
B is premised on the belief that once Biden becomes president, he will reverse
Trump’s sanctions and simply rejoin the nuclear deal. But this will prove
easier said than done.
By the time
Biden becomes president in January 2021, there will remain two years until the
world agrees to Iran replacing its first generation centrifuges with newer
ones, per the deal. Biden will have to convince America that Iran can be
trusted with centrifuges that can enrich uranium faster, and thus shorten the
time required to make a bomb, should Tehran ever decide to do so.
However,
the past few years have proved that Iran cannot be trusted. Even the Europeans,
with Russia and China, expressed dismay that Iran has been violating its
commitments under the nuclear deal, as it accelerated its enrichment and
increased its stock of higher grade uranium.
Iran has
also shown that it considers its ratification of the NPT protocol as open to
political bargaining. Should Iran decide to, it can just scrap its commitment
to the NPT and make a bomb, the same way North Korea trashed the Additional
Protocol over a decade ago.
When former
president Barack Obama threw his weight behind the nuclear deal with Iran, he
reasoned that Tehran is a rational player and has good intentions, and that
only if the world can break the cycle of mistrust with Iran, all disagreements
can be solved.
A novice in
foreign affairs, Obama seemed unaware that Iran never seeks solutions, but
always keeps issues unresolved because it ensures Tehran remains globally
relevant and gives the regime the ability to extort and blackmail the world.
The past
three years since Trump has reinstated US sanctions on Iran have shown the
world, and most importantly Biden, how Iran perceives its nuclear program.
Despite Tehran’s official rhetoric, the regime has never been interested in
producing nuclear power, but instead seeks to acquire a nuclear bomb. For the
regime, only a nuclear bomb will give it global immunity and ensure its
survival for eternity.
Over the
past few years, Trump has slammed Iran with dozens of sanctions not directly
related to the Iranian nuclear program, but instead based on Iran’s support for
terrorism and its destabilizing regional behavior. Even Obama left Iranian
sponsor of terrorism outside the nuclear deal, and was hoping that the deal
will restore Iran to global normalcy and make the mullahs abandon their
destabilizing activities.
Before the
deal and Trump’s eventual withdrawal, Obama’s hypothesis had not been tested.
But five years later, Washington and the world now know that no amount of
nuclear deals with Iran will result in making the mullahs behave like a normal
peaceful state.
Unlike how
Obama appealed to Congress to give the deal with Iran a chance, Biden will not
be able to pretend that the deal had produced any positive results. For Biden
to rejoin the deal, he will have to climb a steeper hill, and his promise to
rejoin the deal might prove to be mere election talk.
------
Hussain Abdul-Hussain is an Iraqi-Lebanese
columnist and writer. He is the Washington bureau chief of Kuwaiti daily al-Rai
and a former visiting fellow at Chatham House in London.
https://english.alarabiya.net/en/views/news/middle-east/2020/10/25/Biden-rejoining-the-Iran-deal-is-easier-said-than-done
-----
What The US Election Means For Iranian
Americans
By Sina Toossi
25 Oct 2020
For Iranian
Americans, the election of Donald Trump was more than an expression of
intolerance and ignorance in the United States. It was an assault on their
basic civil rights and the existence of their country of heritage.
In the past
four years, Iranian Americans have been torn from their families, stripped of
their bank accounts, and arrested at the border. A continuation of the status
quo would make the community an ever-more vulnerable minority, especially as
the drums of war against Iran beat louder.
The plight
of Iranian Americans is proof of not only the inherent dangers of a xenophobic
commander-in-chief, but of the corrosive effect warmongering policies abroad
have on civil liberties at home. Many of the challenges faced by the community
today are a direct consequence of tensions between the US and Iranian
governments, such as the “Muslim ban” that mostly targets Iranians and is
grounded in debunked security excuses, or broadly-written sanctions that have
led to cases of banking and other services being denied to Iranian Americans.
The fact
that Americans of Iranian heritage are now facing blatant discrimination should
worry all Americans concerned with safeguarding the US as a constitutional
republic. This moment calls for broad coalition building and bold political
action among Americans from all ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic backgrounds.
The Stakes Facing The Iranian-American
Community
The
Iranian-American community is relatively affluent and highly-educated but by no
means politically monolithic. In the 2019 Public Opinion Survey of Iranian
Americans, almost seven in 10 of the respondents said they will probably (19
percent) or definitely (50 percent) vote for the Democratic candidate for
president in 2020, while just 21 percent said they will probably or definitely
vote for President Trump’s re-election. The same poll demonstrated the top
issues for the community are promoting human rights and democracy in Iran,
preventing war, and easing sanctions. The community has met major setbacks on
all these priorities in the Trump era.
For Iranian
Americans, the Trump presidency categorically demonstrated: “If you are not at
the table, you are on the menu.” Trump’s feverish march to war with Iran has
already led to the curtailment of their civil rights and promises even more
frightening consequences. This was exemplified in January when the US
assassinated Iranian General Qassem Soleimani and brought the two nations to
the brink of war. Soon after the news of the assassination made headlines
across the world, reports emerged of hundreds of Iranian Americans being
stopped after re-entering the US from Canada. Many had simply gone across the
border for a concert only to be held and interrogated upon their return about
their “political views and allegiances”. It later became evident this was not
some isolated incident by a few bigoted border officials but stemmed from a
directive from US Customs and Border Protection.
While
Americans of Iranian origin face a growing atmosphere of discrimination,
Iranians in Iran have suffered far worse from the devastating US economic
sanctions imposed in recent years. These sanctions are creating unprecedented
poverty and crushing the Iranian middle class and civil society. The academic
literature shows they will diminish the potential for peaceful democratic
change and entrench authoritarianism. Despite this, President Trump has doubled
down on his reliance on sanctions even amid the coronavirus pandemic and coupled
it with threats to destroy Iranian cultural sites and “end” Iran.
The Trump
era has made the stakes crystal clear for many Iranian Americans: Either
organise politically and make your voice heard or face increasing persecution.
There currently exist several Iranian American advocacy organisations aiming to
do precisely this, and I work for the largest, the National Iranian American
Council (NIAC).
However,
Iranian American advocacy organisations are also caught in the crossfire
between the governments of the US and Iran. Shockingly, efforts to silence
Iranian Americans who seek to bridge the gap between the two societies come not
just from Iran’s repressive government, but also the US government in recent
times.
Last
summer, a scandal erupted after it emerged that a US State Department programme
created to combat Iranian government propaganda, the Iran Disinformation
Project, was being used to smear and slander Iranian American critics of the
Trump administration’s approach to Iran, including journalists, academics,
analysts, and organisations like NIAC.
While
funding for the project was cut after its activities were revealed, attacks on
Iranian Americans from State Department officials have continued. Recently,
Ellie Cohanim, the State Department’s assistant special envoy on combatting
anti-Semitism, accused Sima Ladjevardian, a Democrat running for Congress in
Texas’s 2nd district, of being an “Iran regime mouthpiece”. The evidence
against her? Having Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, who was imprisoned
in Iran for years, tweet about her.
The attacks
by Cohanim and the State Department at large reflect a concerted effort to
marginalise and increasingly demonise Iranian Americans opposed to the Trump
administration. As Dylan Williams of J-Street opined, Cohanim’s remarks
amounted to a “reprehensible” and “bigoted dual loyalty accusation”, an ugly
canard that has been used to destructive effect against Jewish Americans for
years.
Meanwhile,
within Iran, Iranian Americans have always been viewed with suspicion by the
country’s security agencies. While NIAC and similar groups are accused of
seeking “soft regime change” for their efforts to improve US-Iran relations,
numerous Iranian Americans have been arrested in Iran while visiting on the
same charge. As Xiyue Wang, a Princeton PhD student who was imprisoned in Iran
for three years, recently wrote, powerful elements within the Iranian regime
believe “reconciliation with the United States is threatening and unacceptable,
and all attempts at rapprochement must be suppressed”.
Forming a
big-tent coalition in opposition to Trumpism
The
challenges currently faced by Iranian Americans are just one example of how
American democracy is in a crisis moment. Protecting the US’s pluralistic and
democratic traditions requires exposing Trumpism for the con it is, and
groundbreaking coalition-building from Iranian Americans and Americans of all
stripes.
President
Trump has betrayed the voters who put him into power, particularly the white
working class. His calls for overturning the Washington establishment and
“draining the swamp” morphed into “deconstructing the administrative state”, as
Steve Bannon put it. He protected corporate interests over anything else and
rolled back consumer rights and environmental protections. He never replaced
Obamacare or introduced an infrastructure plan. His tax-cut bill made the rich
richer as the middle class continues to shrink. He never brought back
manufacturing jobs. After being elected on a promise to end endless wars, he
needlessly and recklessly took the US to the cusp of a catastrophic war with
Iran.
The US
desperately needs a new social contract. Even if Trump loses in November,
defeating his legacy and preventing the rise of another populist demagogue in
his vein necessitates Iranian, Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian, and white
Americans (including those of rural and working-class backgrounds) making
common cause and standing up for the ideals this country was founded on.
The views
expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect
Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2020/10/25/what-the-us-election-means-for-iranian-americans/
----
So, What Do Arabs Want From The Next US
President?
By Faisal J. Abbas
October 25,
2020
With a few
days to go until the US votes in its new president, the atmosphere is tense and
the air — both in America and here in the Middle East— is so thick with
expectation and desperation that you can almost cut it with a knife.
Deciding
America’s future is obviously a matter for Americans, and US allies in the
region look forward to working closely with whoever emerges as the winner:
Republican incumbent, Donald Trump, or Democratic contender, Joe Biden.
US regional
allies are actually very predictable when it comes to dealing with the
transition in the White House. And the same — dare I say — applies to whomever
ends up winning the race.
Indeed,
people should pay very little attention to the huffing and puffing of some
enemies of US allies in the region disguised as scenarios of what might happen
in case the Democrats win.
As is the
case every election year — or “silly season” as the legendary former Saudi
ambassador to the US, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, used to call it — there is much that was and will be said in
the run-up to Election Day. After the third of November however, the
campaigning stops and reality checks in.
This is, of
course, no secret to anyone familiar with how American politics work. Yet, some
Middle East pundits still compete in trying to predict who would be better for
Saudi Arabia.
I refer
these so-called experts to this newspaper’s interview with US State Department
spokeswoman, Morgan Ortagus, who pointed out that the Saudi-US relationship
“always has been bipartisan.”
Also
noteworthy, for those critics with short memories, was her reference to US arms
sales to Saudi Arabia, which she says that she worked on herself when she was
part of the Obama administration.
Critics
should also remember that it was President Obama, a Democrat, who vetoed
Congress on acts which were against Saudi Arabia; after all, whatever tactical
differences of opinion Riyadh and Washington may have had at the time, he would
never have acted against the interests of his own country given that US
presidents quickly realize the strategic importance of the Kingdom,
religiously, economically and politically.
However, we
must acknowledge that in the Middle East, there are the views and policies of
those in power; and there are the hearts and minds of the people on the street
— and these are not always aligned.
This is why
we at Arab News are proud to present our second US elections YouGov poll, where
we ask the Arab Street — in this case a sample of more than 3,000 people in 18
countries — what their hopes, aspirations and fears are when it comes to the
presidential candidates and their policies.
As the
numbers show, it seems some things remain unchanged when compared with our 2016
poll, such as the findings that most respondents are skeptical about US foreign
policy, with 84 percent saying that the US has not done enough to support Arab
countries in their battles with extremism.
Interestingly
though, while Biden has proven more popular than Trump, this does not mean that
Arabs are willing to sign him a blank cheque.
In fact,
one of the most interesting findings in our “Elections 2020: What do Arabs
want?”
Arab
News/YouGov poll is that (53 percent) of Arabs think Obama left the region
worse off, and also a solid majority of (58 percent) think that Biden should
distance himself from Obama-era policies.
This is an
interesting change in attitude; as I am sure we all remember just how popular
President Obama was in the region following his famous 2009 Cairo speech.
However, it seems that we in the Middle East are finally learning the lesson
that actions speak louder than words.
Speaking of
lessons, a free (albeit very long) one has recently become available: I refer
to Hillary Clinton’s declassified emails, which show the disastrous impact some
policies of the Obama administration had, and continue to have, on this region.
For those who followed the Obama presidency closely, there was little new to
discover in the correspondence. However, for less-keen observers who were taken
in by the president’s soaring rhetoric, the revelations might have been
heartbreaking.
As vice
president at the time, Biden would have had only a minimal say in managing
Clinton while she was secretary of state. In fact, blame for setting the region
ablaze can be almost exclusively distributed among Clinton, Obama and Ben
Rhodes, the president’s “boy genius” of a deputy national security adviser.
So what do
these emails reveal about Hillary Clinton? Well, many things, in fact, and here
are some of the most alarming:
1 — They
expose a close relationship with the Muslim Brotherhood, which has been
designated a terrorist group by many Muslim-majority countries. Its chief
ideologue, the Doha based cleric Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, has repeatedly spewed
intolerance and venom against followers of different faiths. In fact, he has
called for violent attacks on them. He has issued religious edicts, or fatwas,
authorizing attacks on all Jews.
On Al
Jazeera Arabic in January 2009, he said: “Oh God, take your enemies, the
enemies of Islam . . . Oh God, take the treacherous Jewish aggressors . . . Oh
God, count their numbers, slay them one by one and spare none.” He has a
similar deep seated hatred of all Europeans. On his TV show in 2013, broadcast
from Doha to millions worldwide, Al-Qaradawi lambasted Muslim countries as
weak, and called on their citizens to overthrow their governments and launch a
war against all who oppose the Brotherhood, describing them as “khawarij,” or
enemies of Islam.
2 — The
emails reveal how Clinton and her close advisers were hand in glove with the
Muslim Brotherhood leadership in Egypt, Libya and elsewhere. They were able to
change US policy and to help various organizations attain their sinister
objectives by means of the red herring that has come to be known as the “Arab
Spring.” Muslim Brotherhood officials were hosted in the US and feted at the
World Economic Forum. They were brought together with officials of the
International Monetary Fund. Throughout all this, Clinton and her team knew
very well that this terrorist organization was the worst possible replacement
for the Hosni Mubarak regime in Egypt.
3 — The emails
expose the Obama administration’s close relationship with Al Jazeera TV — in
contrast with the previous George W. Bush administration, which reportedly
wanted the channel’s offices bombed. Al Jazeera was the medium of choice for
extremists, especially Al-Qaeda. For years it was the exclusive disseminator of
the Bin Laden tapes, and it was Al-Qaeda’s incitement via Al Jazeera that led
to a series of deadly attacks on American forces in Afghanistan and later Iraq.
Al-Qaeda videos would mysteriously arrive in Al Jazeera offices and then be
given space during prime time on Al Jazeera. By supporting the channel, Hillary
Clinton stands accused of sleeping with the devil.
4 — On the
subject of American lives, another prominent Obama foreign policy failure is exposed
in the emails relating to the funding of the so-called
Arab Spring
through the Clinton Foundation. Those emails reveal the trigger for the deaths
in 2012 of the US ambassador to Libya, John Christopher Stevens, and Sean
Smith, a US Foreign Service information management officer. Of course this is
in no way an endorsement of Libya’s madman Muammar Qaddafi, but backing
Islamist parties has always backfired, and it is astonishing that American
officials failed to learn this lesson.
As Dan
Kovalik, a contributor to Huffington Post, pointed out, Hillary Clinton and her
team knew that “in terms of the alleged goal of promoting regional security, a
number of emails reflect the awareness that the bombing campaign, and the
toppling of the aggressively anti-Al-Qaeda Qaddafi, might very well open a
space for Al-Qaeda and allied forces to take over many parts of Libya, as they
actually have.”
Kovalik
refers to one particular email (Doc No. C05780521), to Hillary Clinton from her
long-time confidant, Sidney Blumenthal, which states that “traditionally, the
eastern part of Libya has been a stronghold for radical Islamist groups,
including the Al-Qaeda-linked Libyan Islamic Fighting Group. While Qaddafi’s
regime has been successful in suppressing the jihadist threat in Libya, the
current situation opens the door for jihadist resurgence.”
Kovalik
rightly wondered how, in light of this knowledge, Blumenthal could have argued
that “winning the war” against Qaddafi was somehow necessary for regional
security.
With all
the information that the emails contain, one begins to understand why Trump
said during his 2016 campaign that Hillary Clinton should go to jail. Of
course, that is a decision for due process of law — but in the court of public
opinion, there is a clear case against Clinton for responsibility for the loss
of American lives and, more importantly for us, for initiating a foreign policy
that left this region in flames that we are still struggling to put out.
Good luck
to both presidential candidates on Nov. 3. If Biden does win, let us hope that
whoever he appoints as secretary of state avoids the mistakes made by the Obama
administration — and, of course, remembers not to use their personal email for
official business.
-----
Faisal
J. Abbas is the editor in chief of Arab News
https://www.arabnews.com/node/1753976
-----
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